Tucson

Joel with our rental car. It had less than 50 miles on it when we picked it up at the rental car desk.
 

Here is our new hotel we stay at.  Several years ago we were staying further north, but that hotel was sold to a strange low-end company.  We like this Hyatt.

We noticed some new changes downtown - including a giant apartment complex just west of 4th Street.

We didn't go to the Davis Monthan Boneyard this time, but here is a view we ran into on one of our drives.  We took this picture through the fence.

We did go to the Center for Creative Photography on the University of Arizona campus.  This was in the art and theater section of campus.

Sonora Desert Museum

The Sonora Desert Museum is one of our favorite places to go.  They have an amazing raptor/flight show.  We were there on a cold day, so most of the other animals were sleeping.

Faribank, Arizona

Fairbank is a ghost town that was once a mining processing town that supported the mining occurring in Tombstone and Bisbee.  The town site is now on BLM land and is part of the protected San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.  The entire town was sold in the early 1900s.  There was a lot of confusion, because people in the town believed they owned their property.  They were angry when they left so they destroyed their homes, or took their houses apart and moved them to a new location.   There is a cemetery north of the town, but since many of the markers were made of wood, there are few traditional grave markers remaining.

Bisbee Scenes

The next two pictures are scenes we found in Bisbee.  They were house scenes set up within the walls of houses and buildings that were burned or torn down.

 

Taking the Copper Queen Mine Tour

Ghost Ranch in Review

We first happened by the Ghost Ranch hotel in Tucson on our 2009 visit. I had just read Lesley Poling-Kempes' book on Ghost Ranch in New Mexico and I knew the family, the Packs, that started Ghost Ranch in New Mexico also had a connection to Tucson. Arthur Pack was one of the founders of the amazing Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson. The Ghost Ranch hotel was opened by the Packs when they moved from New Mexico to Tucson.

Here are pictures from 2009. I was heartbroken to see this revered symbol associated with the grand Ghost Ranch in New Mexico - abandon and lonely on the side of a busy street.




In 2010 we saw signs that the hotel was going to be remodeled for senior housing.

This year things were looking good at the Ghost Ranch hotel. The property is near completion. The people who made it into senior housing were faithful to the old design and many of the design elements. It seems like a cozy place to live.






Here is a link to an article about the rehabilitation of the property.

Tucson

When we arrived we went straight from the airport to the Tucson Zoo where we could enjoy some time in the sun.



Friday morning we took the "Shake Rattle and Roll" Segway tour. We were the only people on the tour. We loved the Segway tour we took last year, and really enjoyed this tour too. This tour took us on to the University of Arizona campus, through the historic neighborhoods, through some public art (including the snake bridge and the basket bridge) and ended with....


A milkshake! Yum!


After the Segway tour we went to the Postal History Foundation, a museum and library devoted to stamps and educating children through the use of stamps (teaching kids art, math, geography, history through images on stamps). They also collect historic postal service items like bags, boxes, and cancellation stamps. They take donations of canceled stamps - any kind any year. They sort the donated stamps - remove them from the envelopes and use them in their education programs for kids. Below is a sorting box one of the volunteers uses for sorting and later filing the stamps.


We toured Sabino Canyon. I wasn't feeling well, and we arrived late in the day so we took a trolley tour of the canyon. Maybe in the years ahead we will hike. Below is a cardinal. They had just arrived in the Tucson area.


Below are some images from The Lost Barrio. We went there to find local art galleries, but found most of the stores are imported "rustic" furniture. In the store below, I found one artist who had work displayed - photographs. As I approached the photos I saw the name of the artist was Karen Hymer Thompson, my photography teacher in high school! I bought one of her pieces. It was a great unexpected surprise.





It was kind of a sad visit to Tucson, with the funerals of the shooting victims happening while we were there. The Safeway where the shooting occurred was just across the street from the hotel we have stayed at for the last 2 years. The hotel had changed ownership in the last year, so we had decided to stay somewhere else. We did drive by the parking lot, on the day the grocery store reopened. It was totally packed with people - shopping and mourning.

Tucson is a city in mourning. One of the very special events we happened across is a public art project called Ben's Bells. On the news the evening we arrived, there was talk of this strange "Ben's Bells" phrase. As one of the injured people left the hospital they were given a "Ben's Bell" by a strange, and other "Ben's Bells" events were planned during the weekend. On our Segway tour the first stop we made was at the non-profit foundation --- Ben's Bells. So what is Ben's Bells? It is a movement, using public art, encouraging people to be kind to each other. It was a movement well underway before the shooting. The organization had been contacted by national news outlets and the New York Times, ironically, the weeks before the shooting. The organization was started by a family who unexpectedly lost their 3 year-old-son to a sudden illness. In honor of Ben's life, the family started making ornaments and hanging them around Tucson. They wanted people to take the ornaments and be kind to each other. Like finding the bell is both a blessing and a reminder of responsibility.

The morning we visited the non-profit headquarters, they had hung hundreds of bells at the Safeway parking lot. The volunteer we spoke to said the FBI was still at the parking lot, and was of course curious about what the people were doing. When they said they were hanging the bells for other people to take as a message of kindness, the FBI agents helped them hang the bells from the trees. I think it is a beautiful way to celebrate life and community.

Here is their mission:

Our mission is to inspire, educate and motivate each other to realize the impact of intentional kindness and to empower individuals to act according to that awareness, thereby changing our world.